


Cornerstone

by FeathersMcStrange



Category: Aveyond
Genre: Cemetery, Cities, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2055867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeathersMcStrange/pseuds/FeathersMcStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a stone, on a hill under a tree, and a woman who visits there and talks to it, smudges of sunscreen on upturned cheeks. Her husband waits for her at the base of the hill and never ascends it. What lies on the top is not anything he can yet bring himself to face.</p><p>Te'ijal and Galahad and the one thing neither of them can ever recover from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cornerstone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Iz (arogalahad)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Iz+%28arogalahad%29).



> I don't even?? ?? ? Go here? So my friend Iz was telling me all about this game and how there's this ridiculous cobbled together vampire-human family and then there was the post 
> 
> 'when ur otfam is two immortal parents with a mortal child
> 
> [sobbing]'
> 
> See that happened and I couldn't RESIST. So. Here you have it. Tears and pain and Implications. Enjoy.

> _I’ll love you long after you’re gone_
> 
> _Long after you’re gone, gone, gone_
> 
> _Gone, Gone, Gone by Phillip Phillips_

“Things are different, now.” Her voice is clear, drifting easily through the still, calm air. The person she speaks to does not answer. The sun catches off her hair, so red it seems dyed, like many of the young people she sees walking around downtown. The woman glances across the softly swaying grass, moved by a gentle fresh breeze, to where her husband leans against the hood of a car.

He looks awkward in jeans and a grey-toned flannel, hanging unbuttoned and open over his t-shirt. Slightly long, shaggy dusty-blond hair lays across his forehead. His eyes are downcast. Pointedly not looking towards the crimson eyed woman, or the reason for her visit.

“Galahad does not belong here. He’s out of place. Out of time. We both are,” Te’ijal adds as an afterthought, shaking her head and shifting uncomfortably. Modern clothing feels strange to her, even now. Cars zip past on the main through street down the road, separated from her by a vast, empty lot of pale green grass.

Silence descends across Te’ijal’s shoulders and she sighs, shifting and sitting down, her back against cold stone. She says nothing for a long stretch of time, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply. The air hasn’t warmed just yet, winter’s chill clinging desperately to the end of it’s lifespan. The tree a few yards away is massive and ancient. She remembers it’s forebears.

She remembers what this city once was. It had taken some doing to protect this spot from the growth, but with the right suggestion and guidance it had remained untouched, save for it’s current residents. They had made sure of that.

When she finally opens her eyes once more, curling a hand into the spring grass, Te’ijal speaks calmly, easily. This is not quite as hard for her as it is for Galahad. She knows, and that is why she sits here now, talking to a girl that remains yet silent, leaving him sitting .

“One of these days I’ll get him to come with me. But, you know my husband. He. He runs from difficult things. It was a struggle just getting him to drive me here today.”

Birds in the seemingly timeless oak chirp, and it sounds crisp and clear.

“He hasn’t let go of you.”

Seconds slide past. The admission which follows is slightly rueful, with the last vestiges of an emotion she hadn’t been ready for the day it had arrived, and that some part of her still clings to.

That it was harder for him does not remove the burden from her, and she carries it in her chest wherever she goes.

“Neither have I. I think it’s more complicated than that. I don’t think we ever really will.”

When she lifts her hand and places it, without looking, on the age worn, weather damaged granite, she can still feel the remainder of the letters.

“There’s one thing he was right about though. Sorcery. It doesn’t exist. Not anymore. This world is different. It feels wrong. But every time a change comes it feels this way, so I suppose we should just give it time.” Te’ijal laughs, and something in her twinges. There’s an ache that lives with her, something slightly hollow, that has never gone, only faded. “Time.”

Looking around at the rows in front of her, growing newer as they followed the gentle slope of the hill to the wrought iron fence and gate stopping the grass just before it reaches the sidewalk, she wonders if any of the others this far in the back, the ones around the tree have visitors. Probably not. Everyone who would have visited is long gone.

She stands as gracefully as she always has, timeless face turned upwards to the sky. Te’ijal turns back just once before she leaves, touches the stone again.

“I’ll talk to you again soon. Bye, Mel.”

A woman and her dog pause at the edge of the pavement, looking up the slight hill to the figure coming down it. “What was she doing all the way up there?” she asks the man leaning against the car, presumably waiting for his companion. “Nobody goes up there any more. I walk past here every day. Nobody goes back there.”

“Visiting someone,” he says shortly, not meeting her eyes. “Someone from a long time ago.”

“Obviously,” snorts the dog walker in return. “Those graves are… well they’re ancient, nobody knows when they first got there.”

Galahad watches her power walk off down the street, her dog trotting after her.

“I know,” he says. But she is long gone. She can’t hear him anymore.


End file.
